Disillusion

this path is straight

has no turnings

it leads to the mountain of words

and unopened books

and it has no end

 

the hedges are dark

at either hand

though white cups of roses

float here are there

and birds flutter

 

the path is a stream

between stony banks

its course relentless

carrying its debris of fellow travellers

to the sea

 

where drowning in disappointment

awaits those with empty hands

and the worries

that ran alongside

like tireless hounds

 

swim now with jaunty fins

still here

they roll their silver-glitter eyes

reminding us of wild roses

in a forgotten hedgerow

Something lost

Another through the window poem for dverse and a particularly strange cloud formation.

Days begin

sun-faced and dew-bright

beneath the swaying flowers

but night shadows remain

knotted in deep roots and matted stalks

 

sky

a sounding board bounces echoes

the silent spread glitter of stars

sun on water

watches but doesn’t listen

 

only the clouds brood

bringing rain or dragons

and the proof that time passes

drifting from horizon to horizon

dawn to dusk

 

dropping scales

gnat swarms

stars

on ships that pass in the night

upturned faces

 

while we

who see the immutable sky beyond

hear the silence that meets the shouted questions

search among the knotted roots

for something we never knew we had

gogyohka for a bit of sunshine

 

when the rain lashes in grey-green green-grey

and the stove is lit again in June

and the long meadow grass is a heavy sea

some small things bring light

with their own private sunshine

 

 

When the heart

 

I will ignore the black and bitter,

watch the moon,

silver light on the rain-dripping roses,

and let the hushed rain-patter

become distant footsteps,

 

and I will send

a thousand petalled, feathered words,

silent as sympathy,

and the way the grey dove

leans in to her mate.

 

These are ugly days and days of beauty,

foulness filtered through light,

beauty marred by misery,

grief rocks the world to the core,

fissuring my heart.

 

Watch the moon, she says,

not the red sunset, and remember,

looking into the cool ocean depths of sky,

who we once were

and perhaps still are.

Rainbow’s beginning

 

Against the herd of elephant grey

clouds, bulging with rain,

a path sprang, leaping

from golden grass, a banner,

a bridge of rain-prismed light.

 

I ran through the rain to touch a myth,

I ran brushing damp seed heads

that bent away in gentle mockery,

but rain ran faster,

wiping the sky clean of dreams.

 

Some things are not for us

to have and hold,

to touch only in wishes, but,

beginning or end,

I saw.

Five verses

 

wind sighs

like foam whisper

on the strand

bathed in sun-glitter

washed in water from the world’s womb

 

leaf-shimmer

shakes the boughs

where a thrush sings into the breeze

tonguing a call to prayer

to the presence of spring

 

I wade through long grass

meadow waves where flowers nod

and crickets sing

and the heat rises

in a tide of well-being

 

A lark sings higher than sight

higher than clouds and rain

while we

clay-footed

and leaden in spirit

 

measure and count

eyes fixed on fashion

the price of futilities

wading deeper and further

from the blissful blue

gogyohka: violets

violets among dead leaves

rust red and crisp

and the green of ivy

blackbird sings in the golden air

stream burble

gogyohka for the first cut

 

the promised sun never shone

on pruning and the empty lane

but the neighbour strimmed his daisies

slaughtered his sundrops of dandelions

regardless

day three gogyohka

 

fatigue swells

in ocean waves of back and forth

and the tidal eye wanders

to wild tulips

almost over

windstorm gogyohka

For Frank Tassone’s haikai challenge.

 

we burn and blight

and the balance tips to death

blown by fiery winds

we count the loss and the bodies piled—

tomorrow the hunting season starts